


Four Days

by Dragonsjustice



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Between Episodes, Missing Scene, Protect Stan Pines 2k16, not an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsjustice/pseuds/Dragonsjustice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stab didn't know what the hell was going on with the giant fiery X opening up in the sky and that weird triangle floating out of it, but he would be damned if he went down without a fight.</p>
<p>But first, he has to find his family.</p>
<p>(Missing scenes between episodes 18 and 19, spanning those four days.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Days

Stan had been nailing one of the signs for the Mystery Shack (he needed to get rid of everything that he had if he was going to be back out on the streets at the end of the week, after all) when it happened.

At first, Stan had assumed that it was another one of Gravity Falls's strange weather patterns. It wouldn't be the first time that frogs literally fell from the sky, although the inside-out part was new (as well as them only falling from one of the stratus clouds. Usually it was nimbus, and could sometimes blanket the entire town). But when he saw the giant floating triangle that looked as if it had stepped right off of the dollar bill, he knew that something else was up, and that it was probably a lot more sinister than the usual eerie weather.

That was when the goat that Mabel had christened ''Gompers'' grew over a hundred feet tall, and Stan did the only thing that he could.

He ran like a coward-a coward that needed to find their family and make sure that they were safe.

Stan arrived in the town square just in time to see Pacifica's mother (and a creature with what looked like a the remains of her father's face) get turned to stone by a pair of flying eyeballs. So he wasted no time in grabbing Pacifica and running with her.

The rich girl didn't struggle. She just lay limp underneath his arm, eyes wide and lower lip trembling. That had been when he spotted Mabel's friends. He liked the bigger one well enough-Grenda, wasn't it?-and the small one, Candy, was okay. Thankfully, he didn't have to pick up either of them. Grenda was already charging towards the Shack like an angry bull, with Candy on her back like a tiny jockey. 

Stan waved to them and picked up the pace, ignoring the twinges of random body pains that ran throughout his muscles. "Come on, kids. Spread the word, tell people to come to the Mystery Shack. And if you see Mabel..."

Grenda saluted him. "You got it Mr. Pines!"

She pulled Candy off of her back and held the girl in front of her, much to Stan's surprise. For a moment he was worried that the kid was going to drop her friend, but instead she kept a firm grip on the smaller girl's waist. Candy's hands reached out... And scooped up a trio of gnomes. Candy nodded to Stan as she and her "ride" pulled ahead. 

That was when he realized what he was going to do.

He may have needed to find his family.

And he could help other people while he did it.

Stan was a conman who didn't really care all too much about other people's feelings. But that didn't mean he was completely heartless, no matter how much he pretended otherwise. He knew what it was like to be alone in the world.

So he needed to make sure that none of the townsfolk and mythological creatures that lived alongside them got any more hurt than they were.

At first, he just started shoving people-and monsters-towards the Shack, shouting for them to get to safety. He didn't look back to see if they made it, and he didn't check at home later when he finally gave up and realized that he wasn't going to find Ford or the kids that night. He didn't make sure that there was enough food and water to go around, because what was the point in rationing it when they were all just going to die anyways?

Then that unicorn showed up, the one that had made Mabel cry later that night when she finally came down from her cloud of adrenaline-enduced euphoria. 

And suddenly, Stan knew that they could fight back.

Stan gave Candy and Grenda some old aviator gear that he had lying around (hadn't Mabel once repurposed it for some sort of flying machine that she used to "become one with the birds?") and let them smear mud and grease on their faces for camouflage, tangling up their hair with sticks and leaves. They took some of the unicorn's hair-Stan absolutely refused to call her by that terrible flowery name, a policy that he would eventually back down from-and slipped into the forest, returning a day later with the Multi-Bear and successful in their mission to surround the town in a protective bubble.

The Multi-Bear himself made an excellent addition to his rag-tag group of rebels, even if his relationship with Chutzpar the Manotaur was tense and shaky the best of times. Stan even lent him his eyepatch and made sure that his rather nasty looking eye wound didn't get infected-infection was painful and also the last thing that they need right now.

Maybe when they first got the idea to fight back was when Stan realized that it wasn't just Dipper and Mabel and Ford that were missing, that Wendy and Soos were gone too, that he had failed them as well. 

Maybe it was when Candy hesitantly asked if she could use their crossbow to shoot down any eyebats that she could see from the broken attic window. 

Maybe it was when Grenda casually informed him that she could box, and that she found his old gloves in the closet, and could she use them please for practice?

Maybe it was when the gnomes stacked themselves up into a small human and wore a dirty sweater of Mabel's and Stan realized how well they could fight if they got enough training.

He didn't know _when_ it happened, _when_ the decision was ultimately made.

But he knew that it was, and that's what mattered.

So Pacifica found a golf club and broke it in two before impaling an eyebat on the sharper end. The Multi-Bear used his claws to pull the word dude who married a woodpecker from out of the rubble of his home, his own wife turned to stone and fused to his arm. Candy and Grenda worked in tandem to take down monstrosities of nature that Bill had created that were more than twice their size and foaming at the fanged mouth. Chutzpar and Cellestabellabethabelle made a surprisingly good team against a monster that looked suspiciously like Cthulhu. The gnomes tried to save Lazy Susan and were devastated when they failed. The same went for Tad Strange, who actually almost made it before an eyebat managed to nab him.

Throughout it all, Stan looked for his family. 

He counted down the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours, and finally the days before he could see his brother, his sort-of son, his kids, and Wendy again.

Hell, he even looked for Waddles. He had never felt any personal attachment to the pig (in fact, he downright disliked him most of the time) but he _was_ Mabel's favorite thing in the world, and he  _had_ punched a pterodactyl in the face for him, so he felt kind of obligated to at least poke around for the critter. 

Besides, he didn't think that he could live with himself ~~if~~ _when_  he found Mabel and Dipper and the girl looked up at him with her eyes all big and wet like that.

It was on the forth day that they heard the rustling.

It was on the forth day that they got ready for the final showdown with Bill and his minions.

It was on the forth day that the door swung open to reveal four of the five faces that Stan had been looking for for so, so long.

It was on the forth day that he finally stopped counting down.


End file.
